


Five Times Chris’s Sexual Maneuvers Were Foiled and One Time He Got Lucky (Or: The Author Brings Down the Pain on Chris Pine)

by thalialunacy



Series: Frat Boy [3]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Drunken Shenanigans, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-06
Updated: 2009-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:58:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one that's epic and involves a lot of frustration on everybody's part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Chris’s Sexual Maneuvers Were Foiled and One Time He Got Lucky (Or: The Author Brings Down the Pain on Chris Pine)

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Dirty, dirty slash, particularly RPS and rimming. More (and still unrelated) vomit. Also, use of that other f-word, and use of recreational drugs.
> 
>  **Notes** : The gauntlet for this was ‘in flagrante delicto,’ and it’s in there, but uh... >.> And just in case you need a visual as to the Zach-Chris characterization, [look no further](http://pics.livejournal.com/thalialunacy/pic/002cfsdc) (just don’t be drinking anything when you click on it). Finally, I must add, if you have any questions about non-normative / polyamorous relationships, feel free to ask. I’ve had experience (both good and bad) and can either answer or point you to a resource that can.
> 
>  **Credit/Sources/Inspirations/Etc** : maypirate, pixelmayhem, jazzy_peaches, [texts from last night](http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/), _Chasing Amy_ , [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_\(full\)), _Sports Night_ , _High Fidelity_ , and _Chicago_.
> 
>  **ETA** : This is actually Part 5 of the Frat Boy series. The author of Part 4 requested her related fan works to be never again seen by anyone ever. So here are the pertinent plot points (deep breath): Chris yells 'HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE IN LOVE' at Karl but he's referring (mostly) to tennis; Zach counter-argues Chris's inane habit of calling them 'Hetero Life Partners;' Chris drunkenly makes out with Zach so Karl fucks him against a wall; Chris and Karl agree to not talk about feelings, but agree they really like having sex with each other.

  
**1 because you just don’t ask about the health grade**   


Karl’s bathroom is starting to feel awfully home-y to Chris. In that ‘I intimately know the inside of your toilet bowl’ sort of way.

Well, and there’s the toothbrush, which rests just where he left it that first (and most recent; sometimes being famous and talented means your schedule fucking _blows_ ) time— in the holder on the counter. Karl sits next to it at the moment, holding a towel for between today’s bouts of vomiting. “I told you not to have the menudo.”

Chris groans, his forehead pressed against the cool porcelain. “Don’t even say the word.”

“All right. I told you not to have that dodgy stuff Zach told you to eat.”

“Told me, he didn’t tell me, he _dared_ me. There’s a definite difference.” He lets go of the toilet and curls around himself. “That bitch.”

Karl lets him be pathetic on the floor for a while, then slides off the counter and crouches down next to him. “Come on, you haven’t puked in like ten minutes, let’s get you a lie-down.”

Chris manages a leer, somehow, but it collapses in on itself as his stomach clenches again. “No, I think I’ve puked up everything I have and now my stomach’s just going to mock me.” He mroans again as he sits up. “And I had all these plans, too. This sucks.”

“Plans?”

“Well, yeah.”

Karl helps him up, wraps an arm around his waist—nowhere near his actual stomach—and guides him through the bedroom into the living room. “Tacos, beer and sex?”

“Aren’t you the helpful psychic.” Chris fwumps onto the couch as Karl fetches blankets from the closet.

“You know,” Karl says casually as he comes back and starts arranging them around Chris’s prone form, “you don’t have to ply me with liquor to get me into bed.”

Chris tries to help with the blankets, he really does, but his stomach’s doing this complicated triple Salchow and he kind of can’t. Then he comprehends what Karl has said and stills, looking muzzily up at him. Fuck, but he wants to kiss him.

He breaks the moment and fists the blankets up under his chin. Clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, pasting on a cocky look, “but I have to ply myself with liquor to get over the bedsheets.”

Karl throws up his hands. “I’m leaving you on the bathroom floor next time.”

There’s a moment of warmth from this jibe, then… the implication sinks in and the moment sputters and stalls out. “Right, then,” Karl finishes quietly, leaning down to plant a platonic sort of kiss on Chris’s forehead before stepping back and gesturing at the tv. “What should we watch?”

Chris curls onto his side, burrowed under the blankets. “Nothing with vomit in it.”

“No, really?”

“Well, what have you got?” He eyes the stack of dvds left out on top of the system. “ _Stagecoach_? _Gone with the Wind_?” The level of disbelief in his voice climbs. “ _Steel Magnolias_?”

“Good movies, one and all.”

“Maybe, but… what, were you doing research?” Chris is joking. Then he sees Karl’s face. “Oh my fucking god you _were_. You _were_ doing research.” He looks over towards the cd player with interest. “If I pressed play would it be Willie Nelson? Johnny Cash? Patsy Cline?”

“Shut up.”

“Do you stand in front of a mirror, pushing your hair into the Bones coiffure and saying ‘Dammit, Jim!’ over and over again to see which way works best?”

“Shut up or I’ll make you watch _Gone with the Wind_.”

Chris laughs, then winces and clutches at his stomach. “Please don’t. I’m in enough pain as it is.”

“Oh, so I take care of you, hold back your hair, hand you towels, and in return you’ve insulted me, _Star Trek_ , AND _Gone with the Wind_?” He picks up the box for said dvd, waving it at Chris before opening it. “Thank you for making that decision easy.”

Chris flops back down and covers his head with the throw pillow. “I’m never getting sex from you again, am I?”

“It’s not looking good, no.”

 

  
**2 he’s definitely not compensating**   


“This is ridiculous,” Karl says into Chris’s hair, his hands tucking up and under Chris’s polo shirt to scrabble at his torso, which is currently leaning inefficiently over the shifter toward Karl’s position in the passenger seat. His heart is beating somewhere in his ears and he knows Chris is hard too and he can’t quite believe it’s come to this, to necking in a car in a pre-dawn parking lot like a couple of randy teenagers.

“Totally ridiculous,” Chris answers into the skin of his neck before sucking and biting redness into it. He sometimes thinks the kid wants to devour him whole. And sometimes does not mind at all.

“We’re not—Jesus…” He sucks in a breath as Chris palms him through his trousers. “Fifteen, and this is—“

“Too small of a car for this, I know. Sometimes you sacrifice for horsepower and--”

Karl groans and pushes at Chris’s chest until he’s laid Chris back against the driver’s seat and the shifter’s in his hip instead of Chris’s. He hovers his mouth over those perfect cock-sucking lips, but can’t resist brushing warm words across them instead. “You Americans and your obsession with size.”

Chris pulls on the back of his head, sucks him in and there’s kisses, so many ridiculous messy kisses because nobody’s throwing up or needed on set for a little bit longer and they’re in a locked car with the top up and it’s been _ages_. Or at least bloody well seems like it, if their hands’ inability to keep from shoving aside clothes and groping for warm skin is any indication.

Then Karl feels himself almost rutting _against_ the shifter and that’s just unacceptable. So he pulls back to breathe, distracting words spilling out on slightly rough tones. “The rest of the world have been having proper sex in proper-sized cars for years.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris says, his reddened, slightly slick lips forming a wicked grin as his hand burrows under Karl’s shirt and scratches lightly up and down his back. “You volunteering to demonstrate?”

“Pine…”

Chris swallows the rest of the thin protest. “That’s not a no,” he says between kisses, his voice low, dicey, punch-drunk, glittering, before pushing his (sneakily) unclothed erection into Karl’s hand.

Karl stifles a groan and drops his head forward as he tries to resist the offering he’s been given… and fails. “How about it’s a ‘No, not here’?” he insists somewhat wanly, the warmth in his hand so very, very distracting.

Chris shifts and twitches under his ministrations with a hissed exhalation, his tongue reaching out to trace Karl’s ear. “Why not?”

“You mean besides the obvious?” A couple strokes and Chris is already thrusting into his hand, sucking on the skin below his ear and causing a serious disturbance in the Force.

“Think of it this way: this is probably the one place in Los Angeles we’re safe from paparazzi.”

Karl’s movements slow and he closes his eyes. “That should be a total turn-off, that right there, for myriad reasons.”

“But?” Chris is laying bites all along Karl’s jaw and it’s an onslaught no one could resist.

“But…” Karl sighs, steals a kiss, then starts to rearrange himself so he can get his lips somewhere decidedly farther south, mouthing at fabric and skin as he goes. “Clearly…”

Chris’s hand tightens in his hair triumphantly. “Oh thank Christ.”

\---

_CAPTAIN FINE (9:54 PM):  
The car fucking cockblocked me._

_HAY GURL HAY (9:56 PM):  
That’s not even remotely possible._

_CAPTAIN FINE (9:57 PM):  
Oh, but it is, Quinto. Let me tell you where the shifter ended up._

_HAY GURL HAY (9:59):  
I don’t even want to know._

_CAPTAIN FINE (10:00 PM):  
Yes, you do._

_HAY GURL HAY (10:01 PM):  
No, I don’t, and I’m not ever riding in your car again._

_HAY GURL HEY (10:01 PM):  
I’m going now. Very important fashion reality show Tivo’d._

_CAPTAIN FINE (10:06 PM):  
You don’t want to hear about the part where we accidentally hit the emergency brake mid-fellatio and ended up at the bottom of a hill half naked and sticky and yet tragically unfulfilled?_

_HAY GURL HAY (10:07 PM):  
…_

_HAY GURL HAY (10:07 PM):  
I may have just snorted Perrier out my nose._

_CAPTAIN FINE (10:09 PM):  
You should know better than to swallow when I’m telling you stories._

_HAY GURL HAY (10:09 PM):  
…I’ll wait for it…_

_CAPTAIN FINE (10:09 PM):  
THAT’S WHAT HE SAID._

_HAY GURL HAY (10:11 PM):  
You’re nothing if not steadfast in your depravity._

 

  
**3 abba probably played beer pong**   


Chris thinks it’s pretty fucking upstanding of him to have made it past the actual front door. They’ve even gotten about four feet past the little table onto which he usually throws his keys and phone and whatsits before he essentially does one of those throw-the-guy-against-the-wall maneuvers that looks so awesome but often feels kind of thumpy and awkward.

And there’s a thump, yeah, but any trace of awkwardness here is overrun a thousand times by the fact that it’s been _weeks_ since he’s gotten to do more than send a wittily suggestive text to the man under his fingertips and okay, yes, he’s horny as shit for the guy and it’s wearing on his nerves. He can barely keep his hands and lips focused on one thing at a time, he’s got so many things that’ve been percolating on his sexual to-do list for-fucking-ever.

Luckily, as proven when Karl reaches around without preamble and pulls Chris roughly to him, he’s not the only one with some… tension.

“Fuck,” Chris gasps into Karl’s mouth, buoyed by the friction of cloth and skin and hardness and closeness. His hands fumble under the jacket, under the sweater, under the shirt—

“Ah—” Hot air wings against his lips from Karl’s exhalation as Karl’s hands flex against his shoulder, the back of his neck, and Chris goes for the gold, cajoling the belt out of its buckle and reaching for the button behind it.

“Zach calls these your Cosby sweaters,” he murmurs against Karl’s jawline as he makes quick work of the zipper.

“Oh my god, can we please not talk about Zach OR Bill Cosby for the next ten minutes?”

Chris smirks, then plants a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Only ten minutes? What I’ve got planned will take far longer than ten minutes, old man.”

Karl’s dimples make an appearance and Chris has to kiss him, no exceptions, whenever that happens. It gets kinda out of his control, though, and he loses focus on the pulsing cock in his hands. And _that_ just is not right.

So he drops to his knees.

“Chris…” Karl says, his fingers threading through Chris’s hair, pulling and spiking and Chris has to work hard to _focus_.

But he manages, and is just getting his hand cupped around Karl’s balls while his tongue does this _excellent_ and somewhat tricky maneuver near the cockhead when he feels fingers pulling in his hair again, really quite insistently. He looks up, pulling back but not removing his hand.

Karl groans and leans down to yank him up and sic a needy kiss on him. “Bed.”

“Is really far away,” Chris counters, his fingers playing on the warm skin where his mouth had just been.

“Fine—Jesus—“ Chris smirks into the kisses, darting out his tongue to touch Karl’s lower lip. The answering shudder is just _oh_ so satisfying. “Couch.”

“Is still—“

“Chris.”

The tone is dangerously close to _that one_ that it’s enough to make Chris groan and give in. “Fine, bed.” Sort of. “But once we’re there, I get to do what I want. Deal?”

Karl regards him warily, but apparently his lust is stronger than his common sense. “Deal.”

“Sweet.” He pulls Karl off the wall and into him for one more kiss, sliding their tongues together in a slightly mocking rhythm, then thinks about his nefarious plans as he tries not to drag Karl to the bedroom.

Once there, he pushes him down on the bed, and not gently. Karl raises an eyebrow, so Chris leans over to kiss him, and when Karl’s hands immediately slide under his shirt but don’t go much further than his bottom rib, Chris can tell he’s holding back, letting him have the run of it. The idea goes straight south and his cock twitches.

He admonishes it to be patient, and straightens up and away from Karl. “Clothes.”

“I thought we had longer than te—“

“ _Clothes_. Please.”

Karl acquiesces by sitting up, but inclines his chin as he starts to shrug off his jacket. ”You, too, then.”

Chris is so okay with that.

Expensive clothes sail through the air and the Cosby sweater goes unfolded onto the back of a chair and not soon enough Chris is drinking in the sight of a completely naked Karl stretched out on the bed in front of him. He suppresses the desire to make Mr Burns hands.

“Oh geez,” Karl says wryly at the look on his face, “you look like—I don’t know what you look like. Mental, really.”

Chris crawls up until he’s straddling Karl’s thighs and leans down to throw a quick kiss on him. “Like a kid in a candy store?” He makes a little humming noise against the skin of Karl’s chin and neck as he makes his way downwards, feasting indulgently.

Karl touches him wherever he can reach and twitches under him as he makes his way down, across, around, over chest and nipples and dear God _abs_. Shit. He nibbles at each of them in turn, then licks a line across them to settle in the bellybutton. Karl inhales on a sharp chuckle. “What the—“

Chris looks up from where he’s, well, essentially rimming the guy’s tummy, to see Karl’s eyes all dark and full of warmth and wanting, his lips parted and his skin flushing. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Karl groans, “that should _not_ be—“ tongue dips in further “—half as hot as it is.”

Chris makes a rumbly noise in his throat and bites at the skin of his underbelly before moving to the right and around and—“Turn over.”

“Chris, you don’t—“

“I wouldn’t do it unless I wanted to. Now shut up and turn over.” He licks at a hipbone and Karl’s hands flex into the sheets once before he complies. Slowly. So slowly that Chris is kind of mesmerized by the muscles and the skin and, yes, the cock and the balls, the weight of them and the way they fall prey to gravity stubbornly but all at once. He flicks his glance upwards to see Karl’s lips turned up in a surprisingly wicked smile.

Chris curses and grabs Karl’s hips, forcing him the rest of the way over and up until he’s got him right where he wants him. He surveys the skin before him, sucking lightly at patches while considering tactics. He’s like a feast, this man, rough skin and tiny hairs and Chris can’t help but palm his balls; they’re heavy and _beautiful_ and it’s like, where to start?

Then his phone rings.

“Oh fuck me running,” he groans into Karl’s skin. “Ignore it. Sorry.”

“I will if you will,” Karl says roughly, subtly pushing his hips back. Chris grins and goes back to it—

And when the phone rings again, Chris doesn’t let it throw him off his game, instead running his tongue down the line and to the goal. But before he can reach it, Karl is pulling slightly away and talking, being all mature and logical. “That was two in quick succession, maybe you shou—“

“No way, man, we should totally _not_ —“

The message sound pings softly, cutting him off. Chris has a sneaking suspicion he knows who’s behind it. “Fuck.” He sits up and strokes Karl’s skin in apology.

Karl rolls slowly onto his side, sliding his fingers against Chris’s momentarily. “Just go see if it’s an emergency,” he says reasonably, his voice betraying a slight roughness that pleases Chris’s ego peripherally.

Chris grumbles, but goes to retrieve his phone from somewhere in his jeans. He jabs at the buttons rather violently, then throws his head back in annoyance at being right. “It’s Zach,” he says, fwumping down on the bed beside Karl to read the message.

“I kind of figured.”

“Goddamnit, it’s our Relationship Emergency code, even.”

“You have a Relationship Emergency code?”

“There are several categories of Codes, both Emergency and Non. Zach’s doing. Don’t ask.”

“What is it, then?”

“ _Ad astra per alia porci_.”

Karl does the eyebrow thing.

“Shut up, it means ‘to the stars on the wings of a pig.’”

“In…”

“Latin. It’s something Steinbeck put before all his novels because a professor had once told him he would be an author when pigs flew.”

“Your Relationship Emergency code is an ironic and slightly pretentious Latin phrase?”

“Irony is like butter, this is _Zach_ we’re talking about, and plus drunk texting Latin is nigh on impossible.”

“But what if you have a Relationship Emergency when you’re drunk?”

“Then it’s garbled but the point is that we wouldn’t try to text it to each other _otherwise_. I don’t think. Well maybe we did a couple times when we first learned it but the novelty wore off and now it’s—Look, give me a minute?”

Karl nods. Chris pokes one more button and holds the phone up to his ear, his hand on Karl’s torso. His brows are most definitely furrowed.

“Quinto. You all right, man?”

“No.”

“Chad?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need—“

“Right now.”

“Right. Okay. Just give me—“ He looks down at Karl, runs a finger along Karl’s lips which Karl, very meanly, promptly sucks into his mouth. “Fuck. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Whoever you’re with, buy her something nice later and she’ll get over it.”

Chris smirks and winces all at once, the former mostly hiding the latter. “Zach just called you a woman, Karl.”

“Oh Jesus,” Zach immediately interjects. “I’m so sorry, tell him I’m sorry—” His voice kind of hitches suspiciously, and Chris ups his game.

“Bro, it’s not a problem, he understands.” He looks to Karl, who nods because he _does_ understand, because he’s just that upstanding of a guy, then dips out of bed and starts redressing. “Everybody’s had their ass handed to them by a relationship. A-ha.” He’s found the last item, a blue plaid button-down of which he’s particularly fond. “Do you need me to pick anything up on the way in?” he asks while he puts it on.

“Not unless Ralph’s has a cure for self-loathing and regret.”

He sits on the bed next to a still-naked Karl. “Sure they do. It’s called tequila.” Karl chuckles, and Chris looks at him, dusting fingers over his jaw, his chin, his Adam’s apple. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

“Alright. Thanks. And tell Karl I’m sorry.”

“Whatever, dawg, it’s all good. I’ll see you soon.” He hangs up the call, still eyeing Karl. “He says to tell you he’s sorry.”

Karl pulls him in and down, and even through his clothes, Chris can feel the heat radiating off his body. He holds himself against Karl, foreheads pressed together, soaking it in, and, for a second, considers staying. Considers backing out, playing the ‘you knew I was kind of a douche’ card, and leaving Zoe to deal with Zach’s totally foreseeable breakup.

“Go.” Karl nips at his jawline, then soothes it with his tongue lightly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not that kind of guy. I’ll lock the door on my way out.”

Chris kind of whimpers, then throws himself at Karl for a brief frenzy of kissing and rutting and ‘So fucking sorry’s, then yanks himself off the bed and out of the house.

\---

_SPECIAL-K (9:56 AM):  
Any casualties?_

Chris reads the text but has no interest in typing anything back. He presses the green button instead. While it connects, he finally notices where he is.

“You’re alive,” Karl answers.

“Yes. Although I might have to kill you for texting me before ten. It’s definitely too early to be waking up drunk and naked underneath Zach’s dining room table.”

“It’s 9:58. And why are you under the table?”

“It’s a long story,” he ad libs; he doesn’t quite remember at the moment.

“Is he with you?”

“No...” That much is true. He can kinda see Zach’s foot slung off the side of the couch in the next room.

“Are you actually naked?”

“Uh… hang on… “ Karl snorts, amused. “No. Am avec all but pantalones.”

“Not an altogether unusual morning for you, then. And way to mangle three languages in one sentence.”

“Thanks. It’s a skill I picked up at Berkeley.”

“Where you were studying English.”

“Yes.”

“Clearly it had a large impact on your life.”

“Well, sure. And I quote: 'Academic training was instrumental. You have to understand the language of society before you can start stretching and subverting it and ripping and tearing it and burning it and watching the plastic drip on the ants.' Mark Pauline.”

“You just whipped that out hungover, without pants, and sacked under Zach’s dining room table.”

Chris smirks. “Wanna see what else I can whip out?”

“Depends. How’s your stomach?”

“Oh, I haven’t puked. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk.” There’s noise on the phone as he crawls clear of the table, pushes himself to his feet, and does a little spin. “Oh yeah.” He grins and sits down again. “Awesome. Besides, quote: ‘We don't just 'borrow' words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.’ James D Nicoll.”

Karl laughs, a rich noise that Chris enjoys immensely even the morning after a hell of a party. “So what, you spent a drunken evening with other former English majors?”

Chris squints at nothing, thinking, then remembers. “No! Well, one, but that’s neither here nor there. A buddy of mine—yes, from the department—had this party and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“But wasn’t?”

“Oh, no, it was. Well, sort of. I mean, Zach’s boyfriend dumped him, cold, right, so I was going to give him some good heterosexual—therefore no-pressure— frat party therapy.”

“And?”

“Turns out gay frats are just like normal frats, only with more v-necks.”

Karl laughs long and loud at that. Then: “So,” he asks, and Chris hears the sneaky note in his tone, “what were you wearing?”

“You bastard. Don’t ask.”

“Thought so.”

And then suddenly the zombie that is hungover Zach is looming over him. "I have glitter on my penis. Do you know anything about this?"

“Uh, hang on. Karl, I gotta go. I’ll—Later, okay?”

“Sure. Adios.” Chris shakes his head at the phone, then hangs up the call and stares at Zach’s (clothed) penis. Contemplating how best to go about it.

Head on, he decides, like usual. Works every time. Works most of the time. Works… some of the time. Whatever. Works enough. “Well. Here’s the thing about that party…”

"How much tequila did I have?" Zach cuts in archly.

"Um... do you remember beer pong at all?"

"No."

"Okay, so then do you remember when you actually allowed people to start referring to you as Sylar?”

"...no, and you know why? Because I would _never_ do that. It would take approximately a _bathtub_ of tequila for me to do that."

"Okay, then, that's how much tequila you had."

“…oh. Dear.” Zach sits down next to him, settling carefully cross-legged with a grimace on his face and a hand on his forehead. “I’m appalled.”

“You needed it.”

“Maybe.”

“You owe me.”

“Probably.”

“No, you know what? Fucking _Chad_ owes me. Because in the great causal sense, me not getting mind-blowing, world-ending sex last night? His fault.”

“True. In the great causal sense.”

“And in the not so great causal sense…” Chris leans over and holds a fist up for knucks. Zach looks at him for a second, his eyebrow high and dry, then pounds it. “I got you, bro.”

 

  
**4 maybe he’d rather hide under the bed**   


Traffic in LA, in that it’s consistently bad, is unremarkable. Like the heat and the smog, you just—don’t remark on it. Unless you’re trying to think of things to say to your grandmother, or a priest. Or a beautician. That sort of thing.

Today, though, this night, for about only the sixth time in his life, Chris wants to pull out a shotgun and re-enact that scene from _LA Story_. Really a lot.

He picks up his phone and pushes speed dial #4 instead. “I’m coming over,” he says before Zach can even say anything. “You’d fucking better have Ben & Jerry’s, tequila, and a _Godfather_. You know what, probably a couple of _Godfather_ s.”

“What are you, on the rag?”

“Worse. I’m the fucking _other woman_.”

“What? –oh. _Oh_.”

“Yeah.

“Shit. Get your skanky bridge & tunnel ass over here, then. I’ll send Zoe shopping or something.”

“No, she can— He said I could tell her.”

The eyebrow, she climbs. “Interesting.”

“What? Why’s that interesting?

“No, just drive. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Fuck you, I’m on my Bluetooth and stuck on the 405. Tell me now.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your tail in a knot. I just—A) She already knows, and B) The fact that he gave _her_ the thumbs up but not _me_ is a little—“

“No, he said you, first, but—“

“That’s more to my liking.”

“But how—“

“Otherwise we’d being having _words_.”

“—how did she know? Did you tell her or is this some kind of woman’s—“

“Bitch, you did _not_ just ask me that.”

“—so the latter, then.”

“Yes, the latter. Heaven’s sakes, Pine, where has your faith gone.”

\---

Chris gets through two cigarettes before he feels almost normal.

“I thought you’d quit.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world for Zach to say at that moment, and they both know it. Chris would subsequently be annoyed, but it’s low on his list of priorities right now.

“Yeah, well.” Inhale, exhale, burn. “Quitters never win.”

“True.” Then he just cuts into it. “So what happened?”

Chris blows out smoke on a raspberry, then shrugs. “She’s here. They’re here.” Flicks some ash onto the steps. “She’s here.”

“They’ve been here for a week. More than that. A week and a—“

“I know, okay? I know. But Karl… in all his great wisdom, invited me to dinner tonight.”

Zach lets out a low whistle. “And it didn’t go well.”

“No, it went great. The food was good, his kids are fucking epic, Natalie’s beautiful & witty, Natalie thinks I’m fantastic, Natalie’s glad I’m providing some amusement while he’s away from home.”

He stops. The cherry on his cigarette is nothing but dull ash and he’s not even noticed.

Zach holds out the ashtray. “I think it’s time for a drink.”

“Fucking right, it is.”

\---

A few hours and far, far too much liquor later, Chris’s phone rings perkily from its position on the coffee table. Chris makes an expansive dismissive gesture at it, so Zach shrugs and picks it up.

He looks at the screen and raises an eyebrow. “It says ‘Special-K.’”

Chris scowls.

“I take that to mean it’s Karl.” More scowling. “Which, I must say, is a little nauseating, but that’s neither here nor there.” He holds out the phone. “Answer it.”

“Fuck no.” The scowl morphs towards a pout and that’s just sad to Zach.

He sighs. “You sure? Or I could answer, see what’s—“

“No!” Chris snatches the phone out of his hand and shoves it in his pocket. “I’m not letting you answer for me. What are we, in middle school? I don’t want to seem pathetic!”

“Too late, honey.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The phone finally stops its (now muffled) merry song… then ten seconds later, Zach’s starts up. Chris, always the mature, non-petulant one, grabs it first, then snorts. “Ketchup? _Ketchup_? Who the hell…?”

Zach rolls his eyes and speaks very slowly: “Karl. Heinz.” Chris takes a second but then he laughs one of his huge, teeth-showing laughs, and Zach shakes his head at him. “Now give me the phone.”

“Are you going to answer it?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Chris eyes him, then hands it over.

Zach immediately answers it, vaulting off the couch to get out of range of the temper tantrum. “Lose something?” he asks over Chris’s yelp of displeasure.

There’s a heavy sigh in his ear. “How is he?”

“How do you think? Drunk off his ass.”

“His mighty _fine_ ass!” Chris bellows from where he’s flopped back onto the couch.

Zoe puts her chin on Zach’s shoulder. “Enabler.”

“Goddammit.” Karl sounds nearly woeful.

“But he seems to be enjoying _Steel Magnolias_ , so—“

“Hey! That is privileged information!”

“—so I think we’ll all be fine.”

“Is there anything I can… I mean…”

“Oh my dear Mr Urban, Z-squared will take care of the princess tonight.”

“I’m not the princess when you’re around,” Chris interjects, milking the sibilance.

“Yes you are, honey,” Zach retorts, “because I am the _queen_.”

He can practically hear Karl facepalm over the phone. “I just— You know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.” There’s an awkward silence. Zach waits it out. “Hey, thanks.”

He almost smiles. “It’s what I do, my friend. It’s what I do.”

He’s disconnecting the call when Chris stands up with a huff and an “I need a fucking cigarette.” He pats his pockets for the pack, then looks around the room.

“Not gonna happen, Christopher.” Zoe has the pack in her hand and a ‘don’t even try it’ expression on her face. “You know what happens when you smoke when you’re this shitfaced.”

Chris’s face kind of crumples and Zach almost feels sorry for him. Then he has a flash of genius. “Oh, hang on!” He goes to his kitchen and rumbles around in the pots and pans. “Yesss. Success.” He strides back into the living room, holding out a joint proudly.

“What the hell, Quinto.”

“Chad’s. I think.”

“Ah. Well shit yeah, then, let’s smoke that.”

Zoe has her skeptical face on still. “That won’t make you sick?”

Chris shrugs. “Doesn’t usually, but who can say?”

She shakes her head, but gestures towards the door. “Well then go!” She holds out the pack and the lighter. “You even get these back if you _promise_ to have only one while you’re—“ She gestures at Zach and the joint. “You know.”

Chris flashes teeth at her, takes the pack, and kisses her on the cheek. “Deal.”

\---

Pot makes some people philosophical. It makes some people sleepy, some people poetic. Chris Pine? Well.

“The sex is phenomenal, Zach.”

“I never would’ve guessed.”

“I mean, _good fucking Christ_ phenomenal.”

“I’m happy for you.”

Chris hears a tinge of protective irony in there and smiles. He takes a hit off the joint, then holds it out to trade Zach for the cigarette. “And,” he continues conversationally after he’s blown smoke everywhere (literally for once), “I think he has more experience than I do with—you know—”

“The cock?” Zach says on the exhale.

“Yes, thank you, I was going to say the male member to save your sensitive ears but apparently—“

“Has he gone down on you?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“The Car Incident. Didn’t last long enough to count.”

“Hah. Okay. Has he bottomed?”

“No.”

“Well, not that he seems the type, anyway, but I don’t—“

“He gave me a goddamned _rim_ job.”

“What.”

“No lie.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Zach gives him a pointed look.

Chris pffts and wordlessly demands the joint back. “And he knew what he was doing, is what I’m saying.”

Zach takes the cig and thinks about this for a moment as they sit there, the smoke dissipating lazily into the LA night. “That’s not unheard of in a heteronormative relationship. Did he say he’d done it before?”

Chris shakes his head tersely. “We don’t talk about shit like that.”

“Quelle surprise.”

“Shut up. Not everyone who likes dick is as fruity as you are.”

Zach puts a hand to his chest. “Christopher Pine! I’d be offended but I think you might’ve just come out to me.”

Chris’s hand stops mid-lift. “Uh…. Whatever.”

“Wanna learn the handshake?”

“Shut up. I’ve been fucking our decidedly male co-worker for weeks now and I’m just—this is just happening now in your little world?”

Zoey’s tinkling laugh echoes from where she’s sitting in the living room (she might as well come outside if she’s not even going to pretend not to eavesdrop), and Zach smiles. “One relationship does not a sexuality make, my friend.”

“What about the heteroflexible thing? I admitted it, in public no less.”

Oh _damn_ the look Zach sets on him could kill seven men in one glittery swoop. “Bitch, _please_. I’m going to have that remark stricken from the record on account of it makes you look completely naïve and infantile. Which, while not unusual, is something I never like to see.”

“Fuck you. I do what I want.”

“Not right now, because what you want is at home with his wife and kids.”

“I hate you. And besides, it’s not like you didn’t know.”

Zach just looks at him. Waits him out. Makes him say it.

“Fine.” Chris makes a mockingly grandiose wave with the joint. “It’s not like you didn’t know I occasionally partake in sex acts with people of my own gender.”

Zach pats him on the back, and it’s only half patronizing. “It’s not real until you say it, honey. Or until you get your heart broken. So this is a banner night.”

“Fuck you, my heart is fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Faggot.”

Zach grins at him. “When you say it, it sounds so sexy.”

“Boys…” Zoe’s voice lilts down at them from just behind their heads.

“Ah, here she is.” Zach reaches up and pulls her down between them, slinging an arm around her and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“I know when Chris bandies about language like that that it’s time to perform an intervention.”

Chris snerks. “Zach tried that. Then he plied me with liquor.”

“As much as I should protest against such slander, you are correct, but I don’t think she means that.”

Chris looks from one to the other, sees where this is going, and pulls a _huge_ face. “Leave. Pine. Alone.”

Zoe reaches out and touches his cheek. “You didn’t come here to have us leave you alone.”

He blows the smoke out of his lungs in a fierce, tight stream, the intoxicants suddenly working against him with their annoying habit of bringing random and startling clarity. “…fuck.”

“Yes.”

“ _Fuck_.”

Zach hands him the ashtray. “So what’s _really_ going on, sugar?”

Chris puts the joint out next to the stub of a cigarette, thinking. “Well. It’s really not complicated. We started this thing, this Free Pass thing, and it was going well.”

“Then?”

“Then somehow—I don’t even know, it just—We haven’t been able to actually fuck for a while, one thing or another keeps getting in the way—“

“Blame Chad.”

“Oh, I do, buddy, trust me. But the point is that now I don’t know how it happened but—” He stops, totally _totally_ unpleased by what he knows has to come out next. “I miss him.”

Zoe makes a murmury noise but Zach shrugs. “Of course you do, you’ve been banging his brains out for—“

The words grind out between Chris’s teeth. “Not _that_ way.”

Zach’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. So Zoe takes charge, grabbing Chris by the shoulders and looking him square in the face. “Christopher.”

“Yes.”

“May I tell you something?”

“Could I stop you?”

“No.”

“Well okay then. Lay it on me.”

She cradles his face in her hands and uses her steel-wrapped-in-silk voice. “You. Are being. A selfish. Dick.”

Chris stares at her. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” His slightly-blurred gaze tracks to her lips and he reaches out some fingers.

She brushes him aside effortlessly. “Don’t even try it. Zach might let you make out with him, but I won’t.”

“Hey!” Zach protests mightily. “He practically accosted me!”

Zoe spares him a look. “Don’t act as if you didn’t enjoy it.”

Zach flails a little. “A hot boy kissed me! What am I supposed to do, close my eyes and think of England?”

“Close your eyes and think of _Karl_ , maybe,” Zoe counters, and Chris immediately protests.

“Oh come on, he doesn’t care who I suck face with. Uh. Pardon my dangling preposition.”

Zach’s face is absolutely presh. Then he shakes his head. “You know that kid in that _Far Side_ comic? The kid pushing the pull door at the gifted school?”

Zoe reaches over and pushes Zach in the chest. “What Zach is trying to say is that he does. He just—you just—” She sighs. “He was practically green all over when you and Zach were… _in flagrante_.”

“Hey!” Zach has a hand to his heart this time. “Again! Not my fault!”

Chris rolls his eyes. “Oh why don’t you just tweet about it and get over it.” Then he turns back to Zoe. “Okay, maybe, but—saying I believe that— It’s so totally _not fair_ of him to be jealous! He gets a wife!”

“And tell me you’re not jealous of that.”

“Of course I am!”

Zoe levels her gaze at him. His mouth goes slack. Then a decidedly unhealthy tinge comes over his face and he lurches off the porch. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Zoe stands up and gently herds him into the house. “Holler if you need any help purging your delusions!” Zach calls sweetly after them.

\---

“How does it feel to be in love,” Chris says to the toilet bowl, hating himself a little bit. Hating Karl a little bit. Hating liquor a _lot_.

Zoe’s hand is soothing on his back. “Just talk to him.”

Chris groans, his forehead cool against the porcelain. “Why do we have to talk it out? We’re men.”

“Well then tap it out in Morse code with your tongue the next time you’re having hot mansex, I don’t care, but you have _got_ to get it cleared up.”

Chris lifts his head and looks at her, trying to come across as pathetic as he feels. It’s probably not a stretch. “What am I supposed to say? ‘I am not worthy to be the frat boy that you fuck on your Star Wars sheets, you beautiful sexy man of beauty and sex’?”

“Well, I wouldn’t start like that, but—”

Zach’s gleeful voice comes from the doorway. “YES. Start JUST like that.”

“Oh fuck off, Quinto.”

“Hey, I say it with love.”

Chris exhales and gets himself to a sitting position. “Yeah, I know. Now get me to the couch and let me pass the fuck out in peace.”

Zach nods and reaches down for a hand. “Can do.” He smirks as he wraps his arm around Chris’s waist and shuffles him out into the hallway. “Bro.”

 

  
**5 if you can’t find it, grind it**   


“Just wanted to let you know you left your shirt here.” Karl’s tangy accent shoots casually across the phone line. At least he hopes it’s casual.

“I did? Which shirt?”

“The one with the—with the—“

He can almost hear Chris grin. “Karl Urban, you are such a shitty liar.”

He sighs noisily, trying not to smile. “Bugger.”

“Invitation?”

He scoffs. “You are unbel—“

“Hey, you’re the one that made up an excuse to get me into your lair so you could have your—“ There’s a pause and Karl knows what’s coming next. “Wait. So you’re alone.”

“Yes.”

“Family gone?”

“Saw them off this morning, but—“

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

Karl stares at his unhelpfully silent phone. His thumbs twitch over the buttons for a moment, knowing he should at least send a warning text, but…

He doesn’t want to.

“Pathetic,” he mutters to himself as he eases himself gingerly back into bed.

An hour later on the dot, he has to get up to let in Chris. Who then clearly wages a battle between looking casual and launching himself at Karl—Karl eases this decision with a staying hand on Chris’s chest. “I have a fever.”

Chris’s face falls faster than a fucked up soufflé. “A fever.”

“Yes.”

“I take it you don’t mean that metaphorically.”

“No.”

“You’re not talking about Olympic Fever.”

“No.”

“Or… a bad case of loving you.”

“No. And please don’t start singing, my head hurts too.”

Chris rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “Well. Okay then. I should probably… I should probably go.”

Karl’s gut sort of turns over. “You don’t want to hang out? Watch a bad movie or something?”

Chris shifts his weight to his other foot. “Um. We probably—Probably shouldn’t.”

The eyebrow goes up, and not in that good way. “Excuse me?”

“You know… wouldn’t want people to think—Plus I don’t want to get sick, I can’t— Look, unless you want me to go get you some chicken soup or something, I’m going to go?” He gestures with a thumb over his shoulder, throws a cocky smile at him. “You gonna be all right, old man? Don’t die on me.”

Karl rolls his eyes heavenward with a small sardonic smile. “Not a chance, my young friend. Now get the hell out of here.”

“Okay, see you.” Chris hesitates for a split second, then takes off.

Karl shuts the door and falls back into bed, his head really and truly swimming now. “Yeah. Bye.”

 

  
**(1) all manner of sticky things**   


The dressing room door opens and Chris has strong-armed him through it before Karl can even form a protest.

“What the—“

“Ssh, hang on,” Chris whispers as he shuts and locks the door. “Okay. God _damn_ you’re a hard man to get alone.” He grins and kisses Karl up against the door before he can protest that, either. The plan includes blinding him with sexual prowess and then— Well, that’s actually the whole plan, but he has faith in his abilities.

And it seems like it’s going to work, because Karl makes a noise in the back of his throat and kisses him back, one hand sliding around his waist and the other to the back of his neck. _Victory_ , Chris thinks, and then he tries not to think at all because if he does he’ll think about—Well. _Things_.

Shit, apparently even not-thinking about it was enough to get Karl to think about it, because he’s turning away, pulling gently on the back of Chris’s neck and landing light kisses on his jaw and cheeks and eyelids. “We can’t do this here,” he murmurs into Chris’s hairline.

Chris groans and pushes away, annoyed as hell at getting cockblocked for like the fiftieth time. “Why the fuck not?”

“Besides the obvious reasons?”

“Yes. No. I mean—Why are you being so fucking mercurial?”

“Me?” Karl looks thoroughly confused. And suspicious. And a little angry. Well, good.

…or good at least until he’s reminded that Karl’s not a fucking idiot, nor afraid to speak the truth like a grown-up.

“Don’t you dare start with me, Pine. I’m not the one who says ‘let’s forget this,’ or ‘don’t want people to think we’re whatever.’ You’re the one that—that’s bloody _waffling_!”

Chris laughs mirthlessly and throws up his hands. “Maybe that’s because I—“ He remembers where they are and pauses for a second. He still wants to yell, though, so he does. “I like waffles!”

Karl gapes at him. “Do you? That much? Because it’s screwing this up.”

Chris is kind of stuck. He tries to gesticulate his way out of it. “I… I don’t know, okay? I DO WHAT I—“

“No.” Karl grabs his wrist. “Not with this. You don’t get to do what you want unless everybody else gets to too and you can manage to act like a fucking grownup about it.”

Chris’s brows snap together at the curse word. “Hey, wait, I didn’t—“

“No. You did. You either like them or you don’t, and if you do then you have _no_ right to get upset that I have my own syrup—or—what—“ Karl throws his hands up in the air. “Fuck it. I don’t even know what we’re talking about here. And I don’t like arguing. We’ll talk about it later.” He gives Chris a long look, disappointment mingling with affection and sadness, then starts towards the door.

Chris doesn’t know much but he knows he does _not_ want Karl walking out of there, under any circumstances really but especially this one, so he decides fuck it and drops trou. Metaphorically.

“We’re talking,” he says stutteringly, roughly, and Karl stops and slowly turns toward him, “about the fact that despite knowing that you are married and that I am a—well, a pants man, is a charming expression for it I learned in some country where the water goes down the drain the wrong way.” Karl’s lips twitch in acknowledgement but he’s not budging. Chris breathes in again. “Okay, fine— despite knowing these things when we started this—whole—“ He makes a useless gesture between them. “—thing, it got out of hand.”

He hopes that’s enough explanation. But Karl’s already formidable brows furrow. “How so?”

“How so? Fuck. It’s supposed to be light and fun and an amusing diversion, but somehow I got all attached, that’s how so, and I am the last person to know how to fucking deal with that, so yeah, okay, I’ve been a douche, and I am sorry for that, but I don’t think I can—“

“Where the _hell_ did you get that idea?”

Chris stops mid-gesture. “…which one?”

“Light and fun and—whatever it was you said?”

“Oh, uh… well, reality, and then… your wife, if you recall. She basically called me a Disneyland ride.”

Karl’s head falls back a little as the pieces fall together. “At dinner.”

“Yeah. Which was just the icing on the cake because I hadn’t seen you in like two weeks and when I finally did see you, I realized I’d fucking _missed_ you, which is insulting enough on its own, and then she—was lovely and wonderful and all that, honestly, please know I don’t mean her any ill will—but she—”

“Was dealing with quite a bit of her own right then?”

“What, like jet lag?”

“They _gave_ you a college degree?

“Well, I don’t—“

“You’re a super mega movie star and you’re sleeping with her significant other and father of her children. Did it ever occur to you that that’s a lot to deal with?”

Chris gapes at him. “But I thought people who—people who issued and used Free Passes didn’t get—you know.”

“Right. Well, we do. We just deal with it better and don’t let it stand in the way of living life the way we want it.”

“See! And you’re always on me for doing what I want.”

“No, I believe I’m always on you for acting like a nineteen year old about it, is all.”

Chris throws up a hand. “Wait wait wait—you were quite a douche at the bar a couple weeks ago, Mr Mature and Thoughtful.”

Karl sighs. “That was not my finest hour, to be sure, but you essentially invited me to the thing and then proceeded to talk to everyone _but_ me, then jump on Zach like he was water in the desert.”

“Yeah, okay, that was a dick move, and Zach and Zoe have both schooled me for it, trust me— but then I let you—“

Karl cuts in softly. “I know. The point is that people do stupid shit sometimes when they don’t know how to deal with their own emotions.”

Chris stares at him. “People.”

One corner of Karl’s mouth quirks up. His eyes are warm and he’s somehow standing closer than he had been a few minutes ago. “Why do you think I keep holding your hair back for you?”

Chris’s throat is suddenly dry. “You have been, haven’t you?” Karl just nods, and Chris’s brain starts to catch up with the situation. “Wait. Wait, so it’s okay for this to be—more than just a— You know, I don’t even _like_ Disney, what the—“

“Shut up and get over here. Right now.”

“Right.” He swallows, trying not to flail like a fucking girl. “Okay.” Then he gives in and grins. “Does this mean we do get to do it here after all? I can be quiet, I prom—”

Karl kind of half-growls and crosses the distance between them in a flash, framing Chris’s face in both hands and kissing the living shit out of him.

Chris just floats on it for a minute, then starts grabbing at clothing. “Listen,” he mumbles into Karl’s mouth, “I’m not taking my time here, because –“

“No, I think that’s a—“ Karl mpfs as his shirt goes over his head. “—good idea. Plus we’ve—“

“—done all that about eighteen times recently without getting anywhere?” Chris’s shirt lands somewhere and he’s attacking Karl’s pants with all his might.

“Yeah, that too.” Karl sucks in a breath as Chris’s fingers plunge into his boxers, his hand clutching at Chris's shoulder. “But how are we—“

“Just sit.” Chris pushes him helpfully down onto the couch. “I’ve got to—we’ll figure it out in a minute, just let me—” And he leans down to kiss a grin into Karl’s lips before kneeling in front of him, taking his cock fully into his mouth without preamble.

Chris honestly, _honestly_ never tires of doing this and especially right now he feels like… feels like he owes him, anyways. Also, he realizes, he feels like following Zoe’s instruction the best he can. Well, he doesn’t know Morse code, but… He lets go of Karl’s cock and burrows against his inner thigh, where sometimes he thinks this all started, and with his tongue smoothes into it letters of things he’ll never say.

Karl seems to get the message, though. He groans and pulls Chris up and in until they’re a pile on the couch, mouthing at his neck, ear: “I think,” he says on a tremulous wave of hot breath, “that you should fuck me now.”

Chris freezes, then shudders, then kisses Karl, hard. “That kills me, you know, when you say shit like that during sex. Just—“ He finds Karl’s hand and presses it against his utterly hard dick. “—kills me.”

Karl’s cheeks redden just the littlest bit, but he smiles as he strokes Chris lightly. “Well, good, because I can’t seem to—“ Chris has begun to return the favor. “—ah—stop myself.”

Chris grins. “I’m just that good, aren’t I.” It’s not a question. Then he sobers. “But—uh… by… _that_ , did you mean—“

“I meant,” Karl interrupts, shifting so his thighs are on either side of Chris’s torso, “exactly what I said.”

“Holy shit,” Chris breathes, then presses Karl’s lips apart insistently with his tongue. It’s suddenly all he can focus on, Karl’s beautiful fucking mouth, and he goes at it like it’s the best Christmas present _ever_. It pretty much is.

After a moment of letting him have his way, Karl begins to reciprocate, giving as good as he gets, and Chris groans, shifting his weight and finding they’re already in pretty much the perfect position, somehow— miraculous considering that they’re sacked out on a piece of furniture (probably) not intended for fucking, but he's not going to look a gift-couch in the mouth. So to speak.

He moves his hips so their cocks slide roughly against each other and Karl breaks away with a grunt. “Chris…” And Chris can’t stand the way that sounds in that accent, cool and clean and like a breath of— “Get on with it.” Karl’s voice interrupts his oh-so-deep musings, and the look on his face— _yes please now_ —stops any musing at all.

“Okay. God, I—“ He stutters a laugh. “I seriously hope Zach has some lube stashed around here some place.”

Karl smirks, a dimple almost appearing. “You have a doubt?”

“No, not really. I just—“ He drops a kiss on those fabulous lips before maneuvering himself up off the couch. “—have to find it.

And find it he does—The cheeky bastard has it pretty much in plain sight with the rest of what he probably considers his basic accoutrements (condoms, chapstick, Altoids, Sylvia Plath book) in one of the top drawers. Chris retrieves it quickly, not bothering to close the drawer or do anything with the lid but throw it on the counter, and grins as he saunters back to the couch.

“Get that smirk off your face and get down here.”

“Say please.”

Karl reaches up and yanks him down onto the couch, somehow maneuvering them flawlessly so that Chris is trapped between his strong thighs. “We don’t have all day, and I’m tired of waiting.” He kisses Chris thoroughly, until Chris is squirming and thrusting against him, then stops and guides Chris’s hand first to the lube and then to his entrance. “So… please.”

And just like that, Chris has gotten everything that he wanted: His fingers and then his cock inside a sweaty, flushed, laid out Karl Urban, who is wearing a look of affection and lust, the corners of those warm dark eyes crinkled and the dimples showing on his cheeks. And Chris is allowed—shit, _encouraged_ to fuck him like he means it, to kiss his mouth open as he thrusts in and out, to whisper in his ear _you feel magnificent_ and _wanted this so much_ , to pull Karl’s thigh higher and closer and exult in the resultant choked cry.

He has to see this, though, so when he reaches down to stroke Karl’s cock, he raises himself up a little to watch. Tries not to lose it as Karl’s face grows redder and more scrunched and his movements more erratic, little grunts coming out of his throat until finally, he throws his head back against the cushions and his mouth opens wordlessly as he comes all over their stomachs.

Chris has never seen anything hotter, swear to God, and his cock agrees as it triple-times its motions. He groans and drops his head into Karl’s neck, feeling Karl’s hands smoothing down his back to clutch sinfully at his ass, even dipping a finger into him and that’s it, Chris is coming and coming _hard_ , trying (and mostly succeeding) to not shout it to the whole fucking world that he’s a lucky enough bastard to get to _do this._

He’s just starting to enjoy a hell of an afterglow and contemplate maybe another go when there’s the sound of a key in the lock and the door starts to swing open. Chris feels Karl tighten around him but he can barely fucking move, let alone pull out and heave off.

And it’s just Quinto’s voice, anyways. “Pine, tell me you are NOT still here moping over you-know-who, because if you are, we are going to have _words_ , and you kno—“

He sashays to a stop halfway through the door.

“Oh.”

Chris raises his head slightly, turning to shoot a glare at his erstwhile heterolifemate.

Zach simply raises an eyebrow, bemused. “You know, I never thought you for a bottom, Karl.” And then he exits, the door swooshing almost as much as he does.

Chris guffaws and lets his head fall back down. “Well-played, Quinto,” he mutters into Karl’s neck.

Karl laughs and Chris looks up at him, surprised to find no trace of embarrassment in his expression. Then he grins as well. “You’re right, he deserves a little awkward turtle. You know what he told me to say to you?”

“Oh, this ought to be good.”

“That I’m ’not worthy to be the frat boy that you fuck on your Star Wars sheets, you beautiful sexy man of beauty and sex.’” Karl laughs, a dimple-showing laugh, and Chris kisses him, albeit sloppily, then tries to make a contrite face. “Well, it’s very nearly true. I’m sorry about—“

Karl’s hands frame his face again and he plants a light kiss on his lips. “Will you shut up? As much as I appreciate it, I can think of far better things we could be doing right now than hashing all that out _again_.”

Chris grins. “What, like watching _Gone with the Wind_?”

And lickety-split Karl has knocked them onto the floor and put Chris decidedly back on the bottom in more ways than one. “Oh, Princess,” he drawls in an endearingly awful John Wayne voice. “Them’s fightin words, and it is _on_.”

__  
**FIN**   



End file.
